P.R. Laws tit. 23, § 146

2019-02-20 00:00:00+00
§ 146. General powers

The Corporation shall have and may exercise the following general powers, in addition to those elsewhere conferred by this chapter:

(a) To have perpetual existence.

(b) To adopt, alter, and use a seal which shall be judicially noticed.

(c) To prescribe, adopt, amend and repeal rules and regulations governing its activities as well as its internal operation, and to exercise and discharge the powers and duties herein granted and invested.

(d) To have complete control and supervision of any and all of its property and activities, including the power to determine the character of and necessity of all of its expenditures and the manner in which they shall be incurred, allowed and paid without regard to the provisions of any laws governing the expenditure of public funds, but rules shall be adopted for the use and expenditure of its funds and shall be subject to the intervention of the Office of the Comptroller of Puerto Rico.

(e) To sue and be sued.

(f) To make contracts and to execute all kinds of instruments necessary or convenient in the exercise of any of its powers.

(g) To acquire in any lawful manner, including, but without limitation, acquisition by purchase, condemnation, in accordance with § 148 of this title, lease, bequest, devise, gift, and to hold, maintain, use and operate any property, real, personal, or mixed, tangible or intangible deemed necessary by it or desirable for its corporate purposes.

(h) To appoint every one of its officers, agents and employees and to vest them with the powers, faculties, responsibilities and authority it may deem proper; to invest them with their duties, fix, change and pay the compensation it may determine, subject to the policy, regulations and procedures approved by the Board. The regulation of every matter of the personnel of the Corporation shall be made without being subject to the laws governing the Office of Personnel of the Government of Puerto Rico nor to the rules and regulations promulgated by said Office and, to such purposes, the personnel of the Corporation shall be comprised within the Exempt Service. The officials and employees of the Corporation who would have when appointed, or who would later acquire any right or status under the rules and classifications of the Office of Personnel of Puerto Rico to be appointed to a similar post in the Commonwealth Government shall have, when they so request, the rights, privileges, duties, and status they may have acquired. Likewise they shall retain the rights, privileges, duties, and status with respect to their becoming beneficiaries of any existing pension or retirement system or systems or savings and loan fund, as if they would have been appointed to a similar position in the Commonwealth Government.

(i) To borrow money, to give warranties and issue bonds for its corporate purposes, or for the purpose of funding, refunding, paying or discharging any of the outstanding bonds or other obligations of the Corporation, and to secure payment of its bonds and of any and all other obligations by pledge, mortgage of, or other lien on, all or any of its contracts, revenues, income or property, except as otherwise provided in this chapter.

(j) To accept grants or loans from, and enter into contracts, leases, agreements, or other transactions with the Government of the United States or its agencies, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, its municipalities or its agencies, and to expend the proceeds of any such grants or loans for any corporate purposes.

(k) To lease, alienate and dispose of any of its properties or of any interest thereon, in the manner and extent that the Corporation may determine, subject to the restrictions hereinafter consigned in this chapter.

(l) To acquire, hold and dispose of stocks, memberships, contracts, bonds or other interests in other companies, entities or corporations, and to exercise any and all powers or rights in connection therewith and to organize companies in accordance with this chapter and exercise partial or complete control over these, subsidiary associations or corporations, with pecuniary or nonpecuniary purposes, affiliated or associated, for the effectuation of the purposes of the Corporation, or the exercise of its powers, and to sell, lease or in any other way alienate any property of the Corporation or to execute any of its rights, functions or powers through any of said companies, entities or corporations subject to its control, except that only the Corporation may institute condemnation proceedings.

(m) To do all acts or things necessary or convenient to carry out the powers granted to it by this chapter or by any other act of the Legislature of Puerto Rico, or by any act of the Congress of the United States of America compatible with the Puerto Rican Federal Relations Act. However, the Corporation shall have no power to pledge the credit or taxing power of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or of any of its political subdivisions or municipalities nor shall the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico or any of its political subdivisions or municipalities be liable for the payment of the principal of or interest on any bonds issued by the Corporation.

(n) To receive funds from public and private sources and to spend said funds for purposes consistent with the objectives of the Corporation.

History —June 23, 1971, No. 81, p. 237, § 6; July 23, 1974, No. 153, Part 1, p. 705, § 1.